What’s the saying, again? Oh ya, there’s no place like home.
Just ask Marquette volleyball.
In the Golden Eagles’ (5-5, 1-0 Big East) first match inside the Al McGuire Center since Sept. 8, they came away with a sweep (25-19, 25-10, 27-25) over previously undefeated UConn (12-1, 0-1).
Though, there was no Dorothy. No pair of ruby slippers, terrier Toto or magic either. Just a well-rounded bruiser attack, coupled with dogged up-the-creek grit, backed by a sorely-missed friendly environment — a trio which, put together, proved to be too much to handle no matter how much mettle the Huskies could muster.
Outside hitters Aubrey Hamilton and Jenna Reitsma led Marquette with 11 kills each. They were joined by three others — Hattie Bray and Ella Foti (7), and Carsen Murray (6) — to make five Golden Eagles with more than five kills. As a team, they hit .311 with just 11 attack errors in 119 attempts.
“We’ve been needing a day where four or five hitters all kind of get going efficiently,” Marquette head coach Ryan Theis said. “I thought we got that tonight.
“Which means [setter Yadhira Anchante] is doing a good job (she had her seventh double-double of the year: 30 assists and 10 digs). Which means, typically, the passers are doing a good job.”
On defense, senior Samantha Naber made her first start in the libero jersey this season — in place of Molly Berezowitz — and recorded a match-high 15 digs.
“Sam has been playing really well, and we’ve been using her as (Ella) Foti has returned from injury, so she’s been taking a lot of the load off of Foti and playing really, really well,” Theis said. “We thought it warranted a start.”
So the Golden Eagles’ offense helped them check off two boxes Friday night — a 1-0 start to conference play and their first home win of the season.
But the only correct place for one to begin is the same place the match ended: the third frame, as chaotic and messy as ever, Marquette with a two-set advantage, leading 20-12 and only five points from the sweep, the finish so clear.
Flash back only slightly, for just a moment, and what began as a nip-and-tuck frame had spiraled quickly into a laugher with the Golden Eagles scoffing at the Huskies’ hopes a timeout would stop the bleeding. They pieced together four consecutive points and led 14-11 when UConn called its first. Two more 3-0 runs — split in half by a lonesome kill from Husky Taylor Pannell — and Marquette had its eight-point lead on an extended 10-1 streak, forcing the second and final UConn timeout.
Then the Huskies’ long climb back from the cavernous deficit — which was made much easier thanks to the Golden Eagles’ mistakes — began.
There was a bad set from Murray, a Hamilton attack error, a Foti attack error and, to cap it off, a bad set by Reitsma. All the mishaps meant Marquette accounted for half of UConn’s points in the 8-1 run, and the Huskies trailed only 20-21.
After a back-and-forth next few rallies, which finished with a kill from Reitsma, Marquette held match point, 24-21. UConn pieced together three-straight points to tie the set at 24 and force Theis to burn his final timeout, the last of either team. Neither coach could do anymore to influence what happened anymore, it was down to the 12 players on the court.
The Huskies grabbed the lead, 25-24, off outside hitter Emma Werkmeister’s final of her match-high 13 kills. On the ensuing point, Werkmeister wound up for what she hoped would be the match-extending kill, but Anchante and Bray teamed up for a crucial block.
It wore off the shot of melatonin injected into the crowd and turned the Al mad again, into what Theis called “one of the louder environments I can remember.”
Marquette’s season ace leader Reitsma then stepped to the service line and applied the necessary pressure, resulting in Hamilton’s 11th kill, followed by a Werkmeister attack error to end it, marking a sweep-securing 3-0 run for the Golden Eagles.
“We were able to get some some key swings and points to grind it out the end,” Theis said, citing Reitsma’s serving and the key block from Anchante and Bray.
It was a roller coaster ending to what can be best described as a ferris wheel start, in which Marquette used a 5-0 run in the first to win the set 25-19, before uncorking a 25-10 second-frame drudging — its largest set-win margin of the year.
But the Golden Eagles got the job done, albeit in extra points, and now turn their attention to the Providence Friars (7-5, 0-1), who come to Milwaukee Sunday for a 1 p.m. CST matinee.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.
